Vintage 2023: February's Weird and Wacky Winter Weather

Punxsutawney Phil did predict that we would have 6 more weeks of winter, but he was a little off with his prediction. January was a very warm month, with 35 consecutive days of temperatures that were above average. However, on February 3rd and 4th, we were in for gusty winds and negative Fahrenheit temperatures. After that cold day, we went to the vineyard to download the data from our temperature logger. We learned that temperatures at the vineyard were below zero in the early morning hours on February 4. At 1:30 a.m. the temperature went to -5 ^oF and steadily declined until it reached a low temperature of -9.5 ^oF at 7:00 a.m.!

Then, just this past Thursday, on February 16th, we had temperatures that hit 70 ^oF that felt very much like May!
What do these temperatures do to the dormant vine? The warm weather in January meant that cold acclimation was lagging behind in the vine and when the temperature hit -5 ^oF, this was lethal to some of the buds. In addition, the extremely windy conditions we had during February 3-4 lead to dessiation of some of the buds.
On February 15, my husband and I went to the vineyard to get some canes to sample from all of our varieties.
Here is what we found:

Variety	Cane Number	Bud #1	Bud #2	Bud #3	Bud #4	Bud #5
Auxerrois	Cane #1	+++	++-	-++	+++	-++
	Cane #2	-++	---	-++	+++	-++
	Cane #3	-++	+++	?++
	Cane #4	-++	+++	-++	--+
Chenin Blanc	Cane #1	-++	-++	-++	--+	-++
	Cane #2	---	--+	---	---	-++
	Cane #3	---	---	+++	-++	-++
	Cane #4	-++	-++	-++	-++	---
	Cane #5	-++	-++	-++	-++	-++
Chardonnay	Cane #1	-++	-++	-??	-++	-++
	Cane #2	+	?	---	-++	-++
	Cane #3	-++	--+	-++	--+	---
	Cane #4	-++	-++	?	+++	--+
	Cane #5	+++	-++	-++	-++	-++
	Cane #6	--+	+++	-++	-++	-++
Cabernet Sauvignon	Cane #1	---	+++	+++	+++	+++
	Cane #2	+++	-++	-++	-++
	Cane #3	-++	+++	-++	-++	-++
Cabernet Franc	Cane #1	-++	-++	-++	-++	?++
	Cane #2	-++	-++	-++	+++
	Cane #3	+++	-++	-++	+++	-++
Barbera	Cane #1	-++	+++	-++	-++	+++
	Cane #2	-++	---	-++	+++
	Cane #3	-++	+++	--+	-++
	Cane #4	+++	+++	+++	+++

Key: For each cane, we sampled the number of buds indicated on the horizontal axis. Each bud is a compound bud comprised of the primary, secondary and tertiary buds. + stands for green bud, - stands for dead/brown bud, ? stands for unknown. If a cell is empty, there was no bud for that number on that cane.
Here is an example of what we were seeing when my husband dissected the buds:

There are still a few months to go until we will be seeing budbreak in the vineyard but the above exercise should prepare us for what to expect from this season of weird and wacky winter weather.